Financial Times owner Nikkei buys stake in media startup NewsRise

Japanese media company Nikkei Inc, which owns The Financial Times Ltd, has bought a 25.99% stake in Indian financial news firm NewsRise Financial Research and Information Services Pvt. Ltd.

The investment is part of Nikkei's strategic initiatives to expand its footprint in Asia, the Tokyo-headquartered firm said in a statement. It did not disclose the value of the deal.

Under the brand of Nikkei Markets, the two companies have been jointly providing news on Southeast Asian stock markets since April 2017, reporting from Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore.

The latest transaction will step up cooperation to deliver news about the region, Nikkei added.

Mumbai-based NewsRise was founded by former Dow Jones Newswires employees Abhijit Basu and Sumeet Nihalani in 2013. The company has bureaus in Mumbai, New Delhi, Kolkata and Bengaluru.

NewsRise publishes financial news, research and information on currency and debt, among other asset classes.

Nikkei’s investment in NewsRise comes two months after it acquired DealStreetAsia, a Singapore-based financial news and intelligence platform. In May, the Japanese media company had formed a content partnership with Chinese technology news portal 36Kr. 

Nikkei had made waves when it trumped Germany’s Axel Springer to acquire The Financial Times from Britain’s Pearson for $1.3 billion in 2015.

Founded in 1876, Nikki has 37 foreign editorial bureaus and a team of around 1,500 journalists worldwide.

Dow Jones Newswires is owned by News Corp, which is also the parent of this news website. A number of News Corp products compete with Nikkei’s offerings.